James Kirkup is The Telegraph's Executive Editor (Politics). He was previously the Telegraph's Political Editor and has worked at Westminster since 2001.

Gordon Brown should quit, say "Tony Blair" and "David Miliband". Hmm.

The "please go" petition calling on Gordon Brown to quit is ticking along on the No 10 website: it's picked up another 2,000-odd names in the last couple of hours and is up over 13,000. Doubtless that number will keep rising, and on a fairly quiet news day at Westminster, don't be too surprised if the petition makes an appearance in tomorrow's papers.

But further inspection raises a few questions about the petition. I've just skimmed a few names, and found four Tony Blairs, a David Miliband and a Khalid Mahmood…

1550 update — petition now has more than 15,000 names. Another 5,000 and it'll make the Top Five section on the No 10 website. I'd bet that will happen before breakfast tomorrow.

Incidentally, my focus on the names on this petition appears to have raised some interest at the lower end of the IQ scale here. If I really need to explain, I pointed out the Tony Blairs etc because I thought they were funny… silly of me, I suppose.

The rocket scientists among you may stop to ponder whether if I wanted to discredit the petition I would i) highlight it on our blog with a nice clickable link for anyone who wants to sign up or ii) ignore it.

And as for treating the readership with contempt ("Prescott", 01.17PM), I have nothing but respect for my readers. Even the stupid ones.